Finally got to drive an Insight - observations

[WriConsult]

Drove an Insight last night and this morning, rented from Zipcar while my Jetta is getting some work done.

This is my first time driving a hybrid in quite a few years (I drove a Prius-II a few miles when they first came out, and a 5sp Insight-II around town once when they first came out), and certainly the first time since I learned to hypermile.

I didn't drive it enough and don't have enough experience with other hybrids to give it a full review, but here are some of my observations:

• Passenger space: not as "tiny" as some reviewers have made it out to be. I guess I'm used to small cars; at least the cockpit is certainly not as cramped as, say an Impreza. Shoulder, leg and hip room are at least as good as my VWs if not slightly better. Yes, rear legroom is very tight if the rear seats are all the way back, but (1) my wife and I are short so that would be rare and (2) no worse than the VWs. The low roofline, of course, means much less headroom, especially in back. For us short folks the rear seat headroom (admittedly very low) is less of a problem than the constraint it puts on the cargo area. Speaking of which ...
• Cargo space: despite the low roofline and high load floor (battery underneath) -- and correspondingly low cargo volume as expressed in cubic feet -- the cargo area is slightly roomier than the Golf's in terms of area. And with the right seatback folded down (my usual bike-carrying arrangement, so my son can still legally ride in the left rear seat), it was a lot easier to stuff a bike in the back than the Golf. Also the load area with seat(s) folded down is much (didn't measure, but feels like a foot) longer than I expected. Won't get anything much taller than 2' in there though. I don't think my dog could stand up in the cargo area with the hatch closed, but that might actually be a good thing.
• Cargo configuration: One upside of the high cargo floor is it allows the rear seatback to fold down for a long, flat load floor without first flipping the rear seat cushions out of the way. Instead of the 3 step process (flip up cushions, remove headrests, fold down rear seatback) that I've had to deal with on 6 of the 7 wagons I've owned, you just take 2 seconds and flip down the rear seatback.
• Fit and finish: typical Honda quality overall. But I'm not a fan of the ugly light beige upholstery fabric that looks like it will stain if you look at it wrong. When will people learn that beige has always been an ugly interior color and always will be. I hope that Honda is offering gray or blue interiors with at least some of the exterior colors. Also the doors do feel "tinny" compared to the solid bolted-down feel I've gotten used to on my VWs, but no worse than the five Civics I've owned, anyway. I'm fine with it if it means saving a couple hundred pounds of dead weight.
• Appointments and options: The car I drove was clearly an LX. I think it's pretty weak to leave seatback pockets out of any modern car, but something I could live with. Also the omission of cruise control seems incredible in today's market, but I never use CC and personally would be fine without it. It's pretty clear Honda doesn't really want to sell very many LXs. Upside for me is that given consumers' pickiness these days, I'm sure that the few LXs that do sell today will resell for a very attractive price 5 years from now when I'm in the market for one.
• Suspension: better than most economy cars, with a nice taut feel, flat cornering yet good small-bump compliance. Better than any of the Hondas I've owned in the past, and on par with my VWs.
• Actual fuel economy: Over 25 miles of urban driving, I got an overall 49mpg as indicated on the aFCD, including the first couple fuel-sucking "learning" miles. A 5 mile round trip to a local park with my son netted 52.3mpg, and a 13 mile round trip to drop him off at school this morning (plus a couple extra miles), which included about 800 feet of climbing and descending, averaged 50.2mpg. Hopefully I'd do better with practice as I learned how to work this car.
• Instrumentation: The blue/green dash lighting based on instantaneous FE is nice, but I would have liked an actual iFCD readout which I couldn't find on this LX. I kept the center display set on the graphical power-flow diagram so I could see which parts of the system were engage. Unfortunately it means 4 button-pushes on the steering wheel control to toggle between this and the aFCD display. This car definitely needs an SG plugged in to really know what's going on. Also, the tachometer could use a finer grain. I like the floating mph display, although going from analog to digital is a bit of an adjustment for me.
• EV assist mode: I was surprised to see how often I found myself in this mode at 25-35 mph, ICE spinning but not delivering power and the electric motor doing all the work. As msantos reported, it is difficult to engage a true glide in these conditions, without at least a small amount of either assist or regen going on. As I tried to get into a real glide (without shifting into N, anyway) I found the display rapidly toggling back and forth between the two. That concerned me until I looked at the regen/assist gauge to the left, and I realized that the amount of regen or assist in those conditions was quite small. Still, I know EV assist is not efficient, so I tried to limit it unless SoC was high and I knew I had "free regen" opportunities coming up.
• Hill climbing: as I mentioned, the drive to my son's school includes at least 500 feet of climbing (mostly moderate) on the way there, and about 300 feet (steeper) on the way back. I was mostly able to keep the dash lighting in the green and the assist fairly modest on the more moderate parts of the climb (3-5%). Seems to me that the ICE should be capable of fully moving the car up this grade pretty near the optimal point on its BFSC map without engaging assist at all, but of course we have no control over that.
• CVT: I like the idea of a CVT, but I'm not a fan of how the engine revs rise and fall as you accelerate, perhaps in Honda's attempt to simulate driving in a "normal" car. My attitude is if the transmission is continuously variable, for heaven's sake let it vary continuously so you can get the maximum benefit. Also, acceleration to 15mph felt kind of choppy at times in a way that I would normally associate with a rough-running engine, but which I suspect my be attributable to the CVT. All in all, I would of course love to have an MT, but I could definitely live with the CVT.
• Heavy acceleration: I haven't the slightest idea how fast this car is. I don't think I ever exceeded 2500 rpm, and rarely exceeded 2000.

Bottom line: wish I were a "new car" person, because this car would be the top of my list. The LX's instrumentation is intuitive but could use a little augmentation, a role which an SGII can fill easily enough. Biggest pluses for me were the suspension (ride vs handling balance), cargo flexibility and of course the promise of Honda reliability. Only really significant minus (from my perspective) is the low roofline and its impact to the rear seat and cargo area height. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the improved cargo space of the Fit Hybrid (if/when we get it).

[WriConsult]

Update: Looks like the Jetta needs to stay at the shop overnight. I'll be renting the same Insight again tonight. Any tips?

One thing I've gleaned today from reading some of the HCH and Insight threads on these forums is that if you really want to coast or glide, you can just put the tranny in N without doing any damage (and if desired, FAS it) instead of trying to feather in the glide using the throttle. There were a number of times today where I wanted to maximize coasting distance and didn't want EV-assist draining the battery.

So a couple more questions for the experienced IMA folks (I'm assuming the Insight and the HCH are largely similar in this respect): Is FAS beneficial vs. (barely-on) EV assist? And if I do FAS it, will it stay off or will the ICE restart automatically if the computer decides maintaining the 12V system has lowered the SoC too much?

[msantos]

Originally Posted by WriConsult

...
So a couple more questions for the experienced IMA folks (I'm assuming the Insight and the HCH are largely similar in this respect): Is FAS beneficial vs. (barely-on) EV assist? And if I do FAS it, will it stay off or will the ICE restart automatically if the computer decides maintaining the 12V system has lowered the SoC too much?

FAS is the ultimate route to the greatest FE but just like all great and powerful tools, it needs to be used strategically and with moderation... unless we want the SOC to take a steep dive, which is especially harsh on the HCH-II and Insight II.

With practice and patience, even a minimally/crude assisted glide pattern will be less costly provided that we are judicious in our SoC management and we leverage the built-in features of the car which unlike FAS, leaves no secondary ill effects.

For instance, right after keying ON on a FAS, the gas engine will insist on consuming fuel at a much greater rate than the rate it was consuming when it was keyed-OFF. This guzzling lasts for a short while and this happens because a total system initialization has taken place and you're back to square one.

The other problem is that a FAS is a literal power hog when done frequently. Sure you can get great numbers when it is done expertly, but the SoC will pay the ultimate price and that is something you don't want to do often especially if you actually own the car.

Thirdly and of less relevance is that a proper key OFF will need a delayed Key ON otherwise the ICE will bounce back on if done too quickly. Also, while you wait the car is rolling and MPGs are not being recorded.

In most cases I would recommend tuning that foot to induce a better soft glide. With time most people will do it easily without a problem. In my view, this is one of the great features the previous Gen HCH and CVT Insights did not have that actually works quite well.


Cheers;

MSantos

[WriConsult]

Great, thanks for the feedback.

What about NICE-ON coasting? If I'm on a long gradual downhill (steep enough to coast, but not steep enough to want to brake or regen) am I better off putting it in 'N,' or soft-gliding with the accelerator pedal?

[msantos]

In a situation like that, I would usually choose a soft glide and especially a FAS if the covered distance is long enough and my SoC is good.

[WriConsult]

Since I had it all day, on this second rental I took off for lunch and got some highway segments in. Without trying too hard I found myself getting mid-50s on the highway at 55-60mph. 67.2mpg on the segment from my son's school to work, which involves about 6 miles along a 35mph parkway with (usually) pretty good light timing. And 51mpg overall over 82 miles of driving, including a fair bit of stomping on the accelerator to see what she could do.

I very much enjoyed driving the Insight. I could totally live with the car. A few non-deal-killing annoyances:

• No apparent way to see FCD and vehicle mode (particularly whether or not the ICE is getting fuel) at the same time. I did finally figure out where iFCD is (bar graph below aFCD) but that and the mode display are 4 button clicks apart and I found myself constantly switching back and forth.
• The sound quality of the stereo sucks. BAD. Way too boomy with upper bass, and the treble's not very clean. I don't expect a standard stereo to match the volume level of my VWs' monsoon systems, but I do demand much better sound quality at more moderate levels. A speaker upgrade would be in order if I owned one.
• I do like how if you stomp on the pedal, the CVT abandons its usual rise-and-fall behavior, gets out of its own way and lets the engine rev to 6000rpm and hold it there while the car accelerates. Reasonably fast.
• Boy is this thing sssslllloooooowwwww off the line. Guess I'm spoiled by MTs with the ability to slip the clutch for quick takeoffs -- even our 82hp Volvo diesel (0-60 in 18sec) was quicker from a dead stop. Hard to imagine there's a high-torque electric motor helping out. As I mentioned it takes off reasonably quickly once it's above 10-15mph ... most of the reason for the Insight's 14sec 0-60 time is the wasted seconds just trying to build up those first few mph.
• I'm beginning to wonder if Honda's assist-even-under-light acceleration programming always yields maximum FE. That's probably fine when you've got a topped-off battery and extra juice to burn, but when your SoC is down to 50% the thing still wants to kick in the assist even under light acceleration, just leading to a forced charge later. I see that light throttle is the key to good FE with this car as it's currently programmed, but it's hard for me to imagine that the engine is ever in optimal BFSC when driven that way. Seems like the mpg could be even better if the assist were sometimes less aggressive and the ICE were actually allowed to do some more actual work (with less dipping in and out of the pack) under some circumstances.

[uabcar]

Hmm- this really sounds like a fun little car. When they first came out I went to look at it in person. I didn't have time to drive it though- but did examine it both inside and out. I didn't find it too small either. The one I looked at was a loaded EX with Navi- in the new dark grey color (polished metal metalic i believe) - it really looked nice.

I was not a fan of the HVAC controls layout.

I actually think that if it was not for the fact that my wife would kill me, I'd prob get one. Problem is that I just got my civic 12 months ago. Of course my plan would be to keep them both ;-)

[uabcar]

Originally Posted by uabcar

Hmm- this really sounds like a fun little car. When they first came out I went to look at it in person. I didn't have time to drive it though- but did examine it both inside and out. I didn't find it too small either. The one I looked at was a loaded EX with Navi- in the new dark grey color (polished metal metalic i believe) - it really looked nice.

I was not a fan of the HVAC controls layout.

I actually think that if it was not for the fact that my wife would kill me, I'd prob get one. Problem is that I just got my civic 12 months ago. Of course my plan would be to keep them both ;-)

forgot to say that I can't wait to actually drive one now...

[Kacey Green]

nice-on isn't the best technique with the 2nd and 3rd gen IMA HCHII and HI2 unlike the other hybrids N doesn't keep the engine off

they do have valve idle where the car consumes no fuel and the cylinders shut completely at all speeds over 10 mph when in a glide, vs burning fuel in N

[psyshack]

HCHII stomps them bad. They ride better, turn better and blow want to be Insight away in the hands of a skilled driver concerning MPG. While I have issues with our HCHII concerning the craptastic worthless CVT. Honda didn't do much better with the so called Insights CVT. It's still junk at a biblical level. Honda needs to buy there CVT's from Nissan. Nissan at least try's to make them right. It's down right stupid how Honda can make these wonderful engins and back them up with a so so IMA system and then junk the car out with a CVT. Just mind blowing. While we don't practice stomping on the gas pedal here. If you do in a CVT Honda you are rewarded with a blistering fast tach and no go go. You have a ICE and secondary setup that is completely ignored by Honda. You can fake shift it and pull every CVT trick known to man. and you look at the tach in relationship to your foot and you see a marketing dept. telling the engineers what to build, and lets not even think of the worthless acct'ing dept.

And why for the love of god would they hang the Clarity front end on it? Talk about ugly! Big old Bull Dog nose on a cheap arse over priced Fit. What are they thinking. One only has to look at the current Accord and wonder.

Insight want to be is a joke! And they are not selling here at all. I know all of my local dealers still have cars on the lot from there very first shipment.

Yota may have woke up from whats been read in the news as a company vision. I fear Honda is still way off track. What is Fit hybrid to be with so called bastard Insight in production. We have hopes HCH will step up a tad and if Honda does not blow it CRZ will be a car members here will own. If they don't blow it! I will own a CRZ,,, but only a second year production unit. And then it will be only be purchased after all hold back and I get into there back room money real deep.

Honda really needs to pull there head out. Riding on the coat tales is getting old.